Friday, April 1, 2011

Day 1 at Disney World: The Magic Kingdom

Here's sort of a travel diary of our trip to Disney World and I'm going to go in chronological order. Like most people, we started off our Disney World adventures at the Magic Kingdom as it's really the main theme park and has all the traditional characters that we are the most familiar with. I don't know the history of Disney World but my guess is that it all started off with the Magic Kingdom and grew from there.

So our first day started out a bit late and we actually intended on just picking up our tickets at will call and having a look around. We had a super early flight to Orlando the previous day and we all needed to sleep in. In reality, you are much better off going right when the doors open at 9 am or even at 8 am if you are staying on the resort and there are "Extra Magic Hours". We weren't staying on the resort so that wasn't an option for us but you are still in good shape if you go right at 9 am.

Here's kind of a run down of our day with details. It could end up being long!

Arriving at Disney World!

Arriving at the park and transportation: I think we arrived at the park around 1 pm. As I said, we all needed a good sleep plus we lost two hours with the time change so it was quite late when we got there. We parked the car a long way from the main gates and all the parking lots have names and numbers so you can find your way back. Don't forget these or you could be looking for your vehicle for a very long time! We were in the parking lot called "Happy" named after one of the seven dwarfs. There is a parking lot tram you can take to the main gate and the front of each tram car has a larger wheelchair (or in our case, stroller) seating area. We made sure to get on this part of each tram car each time. This part of the trip was the most dreaded for us because we had to collapse our double stroller to get it on...I held Aleena, then we had to somehow scoot Connor onto the tram while Jeremy got the stroller on. Same idea when we got off of it, stroller off, Connor needed help getting off and I had my hands full with Aleena. We actually avoided the tram on most days as we were close enough to the gate so we could just walk in. I didn't even mention our two year old's resistance to actually sit on the tram so I was trying to hold two squirmy kids at the same time.

Will Call: The first day, we picked up our tickets at Will Call which is at the main entrance of each park. The line wasn't too long and we had our tickets within a few minutes. The next step is taking the monorail to the actual theme park. This went much more smoothly as you can drive your stroller right on and just lock it in place. No collapsing necessary!

Entering the Theme Park: Like most major events in the US, you will need to go through security to have your bags checked. Get ready to unzip your camera bags and that sort of thing. Then, you stick your tickets through the electronic ticket reader and may need to provide your fingerpint...which kind of grossed me out thinking of all the fingers that touched the fingerprint reader.

Jeremy and Connor walking down Main Street for the first time!

Obviously, we arrived late and our first day was more about checking everything out so we didn't have a plan in place. I would highly recommend plans but it was all right for us on the first day. Here's what we did:

Main Street Parade: We found a spot along the parade route in front of the Country Bears. I grabbed some food at one of the food outlets nearby. It's faster if you pay with a credit card or have a Disney Dining plan. It was reasonably priced...maybe $8 for a burger and fries meal. They have kids' meals at most places for around $5 and you can get some healthier options like apple sauce or carrots sticks instead of fries. We found a shady spot and saved our spot for about an hour which was fine because we took turns changing diapers and we sat and ate our lunch as well. The parade was a great way to start off Disney as it got us in the mood and we got to see a lot of the characters on the floats. A few characters tried giving Connor high fives but he was tired and pretty overwhelmed by everything. Here are some photos!

Country Bear Jamboree: After the parade, it just made sense to go to this performance since it was right behind us. Jeremy took Connor and I went in search of a place to nurse Aleena. I didn't find the baby centre so just walked around and met up with Jeremy since there wasn't a decent place to sit and feed a baby. We decided I would go watch the Country Bears by myself first and then find the Baby Centre. The show was maybe 15 minutes long and kind of weird to be honest. It's a bunch of large robotic teddy bears singing seemingly inappropriate songs that were a bit hard to relate to. For example, baby bears with bottles singing about not being able to find a good man. I just wasn't sure what to think about the show or even whether I should clap for robots?! To be fair, it was kind of fascinating even though I found it odd. It's worth checking out just for the interesting robotic effects.

Baby Care Centre: This was possibly our favourite attraction at Disney World. Don't miss out on this attraction if you have a baby or even a toddler. There's a room for diaper changes, a shared nursing room, emergency supplies, and a room with a TV, books, chairs, and high chairs. Not the most entertaining but necessary for everything else to be entertaining!

Dream-Along with Mickey: This is an entertaining show that takes place frequently in front of the castle. It's hard to miss since it's on several times a day. We watched it after the diaper changes and before our next little walk. It was around this time that we went for a walk and the kids both fell asleep since they were still exhausted from our trip to Florida. We went to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh to get FastPasses for later that evening. Then, we walked around Adventureland and parked in front of the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse for a while since it was nice and shady. Both kids had long naps!

Cosmic Ray's: We then went back towards Fantasyland and stopped at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Café for some dinner. Connor was STILL sleeping until about half way through the meal. It was a nice air conditioned atmosphere with typical American type fare. We were able to take the stroller right into most dining establishments including this one.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: Even with the FastPass, we had a bit of a wait at this attraction. It was worth it though...just an amazingly cool ride that's really hard to describe except to say it's full of surprises and awesome brightly coloured Winne the Pooh characters. As with most rides, you'll exit through the related store on the way out. Connor loves Winnie the Pooh so I got him a bear which he's been sleeping with ever since. :-)

Wishes Nighttime Spectacular: An awesome fireworks show with Disney characters and music. Kind of reminded me of watching the beginning of Disney movies with the fireworks and castle. There's even Tinkerbell!

Main Street Electrical Parade: This took place rather late (at 11 pm local time although we were still on SK time so more like 9 pm for us) and we were all pretty tired but decided to stay for this parade. It was worth the wait as we got another look at even more Disney characters on some very impressive floats. I took some video so I'll try posting it here too!

I love this photo...you can see the Electrical Parade in the background!

That was our first day that was just supposed to be checking things out but we ended up doing a lot! The Magic Kingdom is a huge park and we planned on spending another day so that's what my next post will be about... Day Two at Magic Kingdom which was also our second day at Disney World and it included our first character dining experience as well.